I would really like if the surfaces would go back to what it was in the past.U get clay which is slow,grass and carpet which is fast and hard-court which could be slow and fast.Then we will see how all the players will adapt to different court surface.
We might have players who would do great on one surface but struggle on the other.
Now we hear the same old stories between top 4 players and matches which are basically played in the same way on all surfaces.

Listening to federer speak it seems as though he has made some peace with himself - he has 16 grand slams, and he is happy and content with it. He loves tennis and he will keep trying to win more, but if he can't, he won't get all depressed about it. And instead just be happy for Rafa. That's a great place to be. No regrets. Just enjoy it.

Agree that he seems to enjoy himself. Happy for Nadal? Surely that's more of a PR thing than anything else? Homogenization has helped Fed against other players than Raf maybe but it has hurt him against Nadal.

Maybe Roger, and especialy Rafa wouldn't probably have achieved career GS, if the variability between court speed would have been bigger. I think the the smaller speed differences between have made GS less great an achievement. The best situation was probably right after AO's move to Melbourne Park, we had four really different surfaces. Now we have four surfaces, but achieving GS is easier than when we had three grass slams and one on clay, current surfaces are so similar.

Even though I don't like the surface homogenization, I understand the reasons behind it. Tennis is easier to market if there are the same three winner favourites throughout the season instead of many different winner favourites depending on surface. But why is the play made slower? Now we are watching who makes the mistake first, if the play were faster, we'd be watching who makes the winner shot. I think faster courts would create more entertaining tennis. And if all surfaces were made faster, we'd have the same winner favourites throughout the season, no matter what's the surface is.

....Even though I don't like the surface homogenization, I understand the reasons behind it. Tennis is easier to market if there are the same three winner favourites throughout the season instead of many different winner favourites depending on surface. But why is the play made slower? Now we are watching who makes the mistake first, if the play were faster, we'd be watching who makes the winner shot. I think faster courts would create more entertaining tennis. And if all surfaces were made faster, we'd have the same winner favourites throughout the season, no matter what's the surface is.

Interesting, August. Though uniformly speeding up the tour was never a viable PR option, since the death knell for tennis was loudest during the ace-fests of the mid-90s.

Ace fests of the 90's are exaggerated. Other than grass and carpet. Baseliners were still competing and winning on every other surface. And even on the old, fast grass of Wimbledon, Agassi made the finals a couple times and won once.

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Ace fests of the 90's are exaggerated. Other than grass and carpet. Baseliners were still competing and winning on every other surface. And even on the old, fast grass of Wimbledon, Agassi made the finals a couple times and won once.

Ivanisevic made the quarters at RG and AO and the semis of the USO when they were incredibly diverse. They can keep calling him a serve bot all they want

Ace fests of the 90's are exaggerated. Other than grass and carpet. Baseliners were still competing and winning on every other surface. And even on the old, fast grass of Wimbledon, Agassi made the finals a couple times and won once.

That's exactly what I'd want. Serve bots would have a chance somewhere, and most skilled of them, like Ivanisevic would be able to be good, if not wxcellent, also on slower courts. And baseliners would have their own territory on slower courts, but they could also do well on fast courts if they were enough skilled. That'd be the real test of players capabilities.

Homogenization has helped Fed against other players than Raf maybe but it has hurt him against Nadal.

Adequate conclusion, pretty much agree.
How well one does on the tour is not a matter of "just" one other player. It's Fed's demise that his one major rival happens to be perhaps the best player ever on slow, high bouncing courts, so yes it hurt him in his H2H with Rafa.

On the other side, I'm pretty sure Fed has benefitted from the slower courts against plenty of others, most notably the big servers, the likes of whom he ate/eats for breakfast during most of his career. How would perhaps Fed's H2H with Roddick - to name just one of those guys - have turned out if more of their meetings would have been on genuine fast courts? Pretty sure Roddick wouldn't have been his turkey in that case.

The public's and media's exaggeration is exactly the point. Which is why as a PR/marketing matter speeding up the tour wouldn't have been the logical choice.

More generally, I think the Top 10 has a very healthy mix of attacking and counter-punching talent. And we're in an era where you can't possibly be Top 3 without achieving a supreme balance of both facets of the game. I didn't much care for Rusedski's game (highest rank #4 in 1997). And I don't mind his equivalent -- Ivo Karlovic? -- not yet entering the Top Ten.

Naturally.. Hell its been benefitted the top 4 really. The game is played the same on every surface today. The best baseliners win 99.9 percent of the time. Pure and simple. The conditions are such you can't advance to the net and force issues like before because of ridiculous racket technology and the ability of the opponent to hit passing winners so the game is primarily a baseline game today.

Under diverse conditions, diverse game play, none of these guys would be nearly as dominant. At least not to the level they are. They certainly wouldn't have a strangehold on the game today. They are the 4 best baseliners in the game, so they are there at the end of every slam. Well before, circumstances were different.

Thats why I have always believed its MUCH easier to dominate consistently today. The career grand slam, even the calendar slam is much more do-able today as well. And very well could be done in the next few years

if the courts today were faster like in the 90s , federer should be much more dominant than now...

for me , he try to say that the homogenization of surfaces helps nadal because his defensive game in real fast courts shuold be not so determiant like now , but for not look problems , he talk about himself too.

the 90s were similar , all the surfaces were very fast with the expetion of clay , sampras was dominant too because his game was perfectly adapted to the 90`s surfaces.